CANTILVERED PILE – THE BENEFITS OF EXTENDING THE SCREW PILE

A client called recently who was ABSOLUTELY STOKED (!!!) they paid a little extra for their piled foundations.

WHY? Their foundations were raised above ground level (or “cantilevered”, “free length of pile”, “unsupported length of pile”), and this helped ensure their properties were less susceptible to recent flooding.

Extending piles above ground level in New Zealand is not common practice; we love concrete slabs with no piles, or piles that are connected into a pile cap/beam or slab. And yet it requires very little extra work from the site team, and only a minor material cost increase to add, say, half a metre of pipe.

As the photo demonstrates – the screw pile has a permanent casing, and so the site team simply order the piles with some extra pipe length. The site team can install the piles as quickly as normal, with some additional time taken to ensure the pile positioning remains in tolerance at the height of the beams, whilst still checking their required torque values. Piles can then be cut to the right height, or even spliced and built up.

Other benefits of this methodology include:
- speed of installation (around 20 piles per day being installed),
- smaller piling platforms, and
- a grid-like layout allowing for pre-fabrication to occur to speed up the following sub-trades (beams and floors, services/utilities, etc)

Another way
REVEX PILING

PS – our sympathies are with the people, families, businesses and communities most affected by flooding and landslips in the upper North Island.